COLORADO, USA — A few weeks ago, 9News spoke to small liquor store owners about a pending ballot initiative that would bring wine into grocery stores.
Today, the Colorado Secretary of State's Office announced that initiative, #121, passed with enough signatures.
Initiative 121 and two others, 96 and 122, all garnered enough signatures to land on ballots statewide in November.
Like what happened with full-strength beer in 2019, the "Sale of Alcohol Beverages" initiative amends what is known as the "Colorado Beer Code" to let grocery and convenience stores sell wine, too.
>The video above is an interview with a small liquor store owner, who is worried about initiative 121 passing.
This would be a big change from the current legislation, where wine can only be sold at one non-liquor store chain location, like a Trader Joe's or King Soopers. Instead, it would be widely available at grocery and convenience stores, but only the ones already licensed to sell beer.
The other two initiatives are also boozy. Initiative 122, "Third-Party Delivery of Alcohol Beverages,” would amend the Colorado Liquor Code to allow home alcohol delivery from third-party services.
The delivery has to be from a licensed retailer, but it could arrive on your doorstep through a third-party service like Grubhub.
Initiative 96, "Concerning Liquor Licenses,” would change rules surrounding the number of licenses for liquor stores. In its Declaration of Purpose, the initiative claims that "it is in the interest of Colorado to create a more level playing field for the different business types that sell alcohol for off-premises consumption."
To do this, it proposes an equal number of licenses for liquor stores, grocery stores and drugstores. It hopes the change would "foster competition, create jobs, increase selection and consumer choice, and lower costs for Coloradans."
Again, all three of these initiatives will be on statewide ballots Nov. 8.
For a full list of what will be on the ballot on election day, look here.